FICTION-Chapter Three

Prince and Grease Monkey yapped at each incessantly, neither listening to the other. Born fraternal twins, they couldn't have been more different than their respective names implied. Prince, thin, slight, blonde hair long, curling round his face like a Raphael Aryan. He pranced his sexuality and his Republican politics around like a schizoid circus. Grease Monkey, short, stout, muscular, hair straight as a Mormon and black as a demon. He seemed menacing with his macho mechanics' tools and hard drinking. A union member, he was not keen on his brother's politics, which led to endless arguing, at times. That night, sitting at the bar in Bea's Lounge, it was no different. Yadda-yadda-yadda, getting louder as the night grew longer.

"Look, you two," Bea's brother, Sammy swooped in between the two, "you're going to have to keep it down." Winking, "Of course, I know it's hard to keep it down when I'm around." His eyes mascara-ed and his lips lipstick red, the only concessions that Sammy made to his drag tendencies. Otherwise, he was crass, unshaven, dressed in the polyester of the day and smelling of more than a bit of alcohol. His dyed blonde mop top and his sarcasm got him through days and situations. Being bartender, of course, helped, as well.

"Oh, just kick them out already," demanded Paul, who looked and sounded more like Paul Lynde himself. He was so into playing the part that we didn't even know if his name was really Paul. "Who needs two gay boys who have no idea how to conduct themselves in public, let alone any idea of which topics to avoid? They should just fuck themselves and get it over with. My god, if I had a twin . . ."

"And when did fucking stop two people from arguing?" Sammy asked, smiling at Prince as he touched Grease Monkey's hand just slightly.


*****************************************************************************


On the street, outside the restaurant, Hurley lit a cigarette.

"Might I join you?" Izzy inquired.

Handing Izzy the pack, "Sure, take a couple."

"Thanks."

"No problem. Let's go the office."

"Office?" Izzy was surprised that Hurley actually had a place of business. "Your apartment?"

"No, a dive on Rivington. Sixth floor walk-up. Small but it works except when the dealers next door break through to avoid the cops."

"Sounds wonderful," Izzy sneered.

"It'll do."

Chugging up the six flights of stairs, Izzy falling behind, they finally reached the sixth floor, Izzy huffing and puffing. Hurley took a satisfying seat behind his desk, which was made out of an old door and two saw horses.

Iz inquired of Hurley, "Gotta drink?"

Hurley pointed to a small frig in the corner behind Izzy, who when he opened it, groaned mournfully. "Any alcohol?"

"Nah, gotta liver condition. Inherited from my mother's mother, sister got it, too. Women got a seventy percent chance of getting it and men only a thirty percent chance. Never won the lottery but I won this."

"Damn," Izzy slightly sympathetic.

"Yeah, well docs tell me I can live to be a hundred or I can die tomorrow. Hey, but couldn't we all?"

"Guess so. You know, you could use a door on the office, maybe with your name on it?"

Hurley smiled, "Yeah, that's where I got this desk, had someone else's name on it."

Izzy looked around the office, sparsely furnished: the mini-fridge, the desk, a twirly office chair; no file cabinets, no bathroom, no office door. Izzy saw a very small, claustrophobic office with a shit desk, the pits.

"This is your office?"

Hurley smiled, "I'll be on the pavement most of the time. Make yourself at home."

Taken aback, Izzy surveyed his sudden working domain. Potential, he tried to fool himself. "Think we could get a file cabinet?"

"Yeah, sure," agreed Hurley, "saw a couple at the Salvation Army."

"You got a phone?"

"Cell."

"Advertising?"

"Word of mouth."

Izzy frowned. Hurley eyed a slim sliver of light that shot across Izzy's face like fast lightning. It danced a moment ephemeral.

Hurley smiled, his bright green eyes twinkling. He's got protection.

POETRY

Lazy Fair Economics


In the time of spring
Cherry & apricot trees
Once again blossoming

Iris phallic public intrusions
Purple flowering in orgasmic delight
For a week or two everyone was off

With their inhibition morals & clothes
Tulips bent their heads in shame
Paying still for the exuberance of the Dutch

POETRY

DRIVING HOME


He was jawboning
Stonewalling was she
More the questions

Fewer the answers
Nature is nuisance
Nuisance is nature

Back & forth till
They turned instantly
An excruciating sound

Tires squealing
Metal mashing
An excruciating sound

A fierce explosion
A black carnation rising
Fireball flaming

Heat on our heels
We sped off fast
Into the black of night

Quick as death

POLITICS-Republican'ts Jobs Bill & more

Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced on a talk show today that the Republicans do indeed have a jobs bill. They just can't tell us what it is. Oh, maybe by September they'll let us know. But it's a top secret operation until then. Are they trying to figure out how to ship the worker with the job to India. Actually, yes. India is sucking up jobs so fast from the United States of America that they are now bottom feeding by hiring our lawyers. So, OK, that's not so bad. But the tech jobs, etc. Come on.

80% of US corporations are sitting on over a trillion dollars of cash reserves that some of them got through the Bush bailout, not to say that President Obama should have bailed out banks, but Bush bailed out all kinds of corporations & banks that did not need it while the corporations refused to hire back workers or new workers because they figured out that you'll do two, three people's jobs just to keep yours. The auto bailout was all right but the fucking banks? Where are the loans to small businesses? Why did the Republicans kill a jobs bill for small businesses, who do most of the hiring of new workers. Corporations are not job creators but rather job killers.

There is one building in the Cayman Islands that has 18,000 US corporation mail drops, so that they can avoid taxes. 80% of US corporations do not pay taxes to the US government. Do you know who makes up the difference? Yeah, you & me. So, they send our jobs overseas & they don't pay taxes. They make billions every quarter IN PROFITS. & we take upthe slackwith our tax dollars.

Chinese products coming into this country are taxed on average about 2%. American products going to China are taxed at 24%. Anyone see the problem? US corporations who enjoy all the protections & benefits of this county ought to be required to produce their products on US soil & let tariffs take care of it. We'd soon see an upswing of American manufacturing & the flowering of small businesses in this great country.

College: Before the "Reagan Revolution," it took one income to rear a family. Then, it soon took two incomes. Now, if you want to send your kid to college, you're looking at a second mortgage. A second job. President Obama wants to ensure that all kids can go to college, especially taking advantage of community colleges. Republicans want to dumb you & your kids down. They want obedient workers who will work for minimum wage, which is hardly a minimum. It's below minimum, it's in the ditch, it's poverty level. Try living anywhere in this country on minimum wage, no benefits and no power. We are no longer the smartest country in the world. We're at about 40%, which is about where we are on most social needs.

Fourteenth Amendment: Republicans are talking about changing the 14th Amendment so that children born in the US are not automatically American citizens. Fine. If we're going to change it, then let's add just one word: "natural." Put it before the word "persons" in the Amendment & the corporations are fucked. Good trade off? Computer says, "Nah." Computer says, "Fuck the corporations, anyway." Whoops, Computer is a corporate lackey. Who to listen to?

Drop & Leave: How many women do you think cross the Sonora Desert in death defying conditions just to drop a baby in the US? There are so many corpses in the US of folks trying to cross that desert that the facilities to process them are over loaded & now they are bringing in freezer trucks to keep the corpses from decaying until they can get to them.

Filibuster: Used to be that if a Senator wanted to filibuster a bill, he or she had to keep talking, day & night & day again. They had to stand there & read into the bill anything they wanted, like "Finnegan's Wake", "War & Peace", "The Bible," "The New York Times & even the "Washington Post." Now, all they gotta do is say "I filibuster." Everyone goes home. Guess what party put through the bill that changed the rules. Come on, John Boner (R-OH) god forbid you have to interrupt a tanning date? Either get rid of it or go back to the original. Some are talking about making it a 55-45 vote to bust the filibuster. Nah, go back. Make 'em stand there hours & days on end. It's good theater & some of us may be exposed to literature that brings out the true nature of the speaker. Or ourselves.

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S METAPHOR

Heard the Prez today, part of a speech he gave. He should have been a stand-up comedian. He tells the story of a car that's been driven into a ditch. Half the folks riding in the car tried to push it out while the other half looked on, offering no suggestions or help but rather telling the first half what they were doing wrong. Well, the half trying to push the car out of the ditch was finally, after a lot of back & forth & negotiating a lot of rough terrain, were successful in freeing the car from its predicament. The second half complained that the first half got a little mud on the car as it was freed & demanded the keys back. The first half chuckled, saying, "No, no. You don't get no keys back. You drove us into the ditch in the first place. No way, man, no keys."

So, they all got back into the car. The first half, now in control of the car wanted to keep pushing ahead; the second half, relegated to the back seat, wanted to return & kept calling the half in the front seats names, telling them again what they were doing wrong while offering no alternatives of their own. The driver looked at the choices offered by the automatic transmission. He could choose "D" to move forward or he could choose "R" to go in reverse. The driver decided to keep moving forward.



I ADDED WHAT FOLLOWS....................

As they moved into the future, the folks in the back seat couldn't keep still. They were forever out-lying each other with their tales of virtue, bravery & family values, oh & God. But they were all over each other like priests at a pedophile party. The folks in front started arguing amongst themselves. Go this way. No, that way. We get there either way. Let's get there then. We have time, slow down. It wasn't long before they were lost, running out of fuel, out of cell phone range.

Eventually, at the end of a dirt road, the car did run out of gas. One half wandered into the woods, looking for a river to follow. The other half said "fuck it" & partying like it's 2012, sniffing fumes from the gas tank, popping their 'scripts, running around naked like kids in a summer rain, they danced into. . .

Fiction

You have to read it backwards or go to the beginning. In other words, I posted the first chapter then the second but it looks to you like I did it in the opposite order.

POTPOURRI

Everybody check out equalitytrust.org,uk. The US ain't the happiest country on the planet.

MUSIC

Heard a Simon & Garfunkel song (by accident) the other day & realized how much better
Orbison & Dylan would have been.

TV

I love the show but House uses the cane wrong. It should on the opposite leg to support the injured leg as it comes down to meet the ground. Not quite as bad as the flub-up in "Love Story" or any number of movies & television shows & they pay people to catch this stuff.

ART

I'm kicking myself because Judy Chicago had a show around the corner & I kept putting off going until - that's right - it was gone.

POETRY

I came upon myself
A shattering mirror
Of decay & delicacy

A shade of seduction
Reflected in a store window
I winked & walked on